RUSSIAN VS AMERICAN PROPAGANDA

Vince Dhimos
 
Russian “propaganda,” if one can call it that, is quite the opposite of US propaganda. Much of the propagandistic language used in the US press comes from the government and is aimed at making Americans hate and fear Russia (and also China), not just their government, but their people, whereas no statements by Russian officials or msm even remotely suggest that Russians should hate the American people or attack US interests unprovoked. Based on this naked US propaganda, both the Russians and the Chinese are now seriously concerned that there will be a nuclear confrontation very soon. A poll taken by Military Times shows that now in 2018, 46% of US service members believe a war is coming, versus only 5% who thought so in 2017. Clearly, US war propaganda is powerful, and it comes from the military, the political class and the msm. We can only hope that the increased hype is intended only to influence the midterm elections on November 6 and will subside thereafter.
 
Firstly, what is generally called Russian propaganda by Western politicians and their mouthpieces in the msm is the statements by prominent Russian figures like Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin, as well as reports and analyses from Sputnik, RT and the like English-language publications aimed at Western audiences. The analyses of events found in these outlets actually differ little from those found in alternative news sites, so they are not specifically Russian and if we were honest with each other, we would admit they are not propaganda at all but an honest assessment of the world situation, notably the disingenuous and biased reporting of a Western press intent on drawing their audiences into a war that no one can win. Russia’s official position is that they will fight only if provoked. The US position is to provoke constantly, keeping troops in Syria uninvited and with no clear purpose, imposing sanctions on Russia with no clear rationale and jarring provocations by officials like US ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchinson, who in October told Russia to stop developing a certain allegedly banned missile “or we would look into the possibility of taking it out” or in other words, invading Russia and destroying it! Such a move would guarantee the breakout of a nuclear war that would destroy the US and much of the planet. It’s not that the US would do anything that insane, but these belligerent words have put the US public on tenterhooks, expecting a war at any moment. What's worse, the US is also developing a missile of this  "banned" type.
 
On the other hand, much of the information the Russians provide relating to war news, especially from Syria, cannot be found at all in the most prominent Western msm. The sources may be Al-Masdar, Al-Manar, EJ Magnier, a Middle Eastern national newspaper or even an Israeli newspaper. Here again, there is no specifically Russian viewpoint represented, just facts that the Western authorities do not want to be exposed because they are embarrassing to the US military and political class. And censorship too is a subtle form of propaganda. An example of a news item that is either banned or buried in the Western msm is the Israeli confession that they have performed 200 attacks on Syrian targets this year alone, firing over 800 missiles at a country that is not at war with their country. A Google search of mine turned up this report, on the first search page, in one Middle Eastern site (Al-Masdar, headquartered in Israel) 8 other Israeli sites, and only one Western site, ie, Reuters). Thus, thanks to this quasi censorship, most Americans never knew this. Censorship, even voluntary, is a potent form of propaganda.
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What I said about US propaganda being designed to make Westerners hate and fear Russia is based in part on the vicious, mindless, racist words of Nikki Haley, the recently-retired ambassador to the UN, who told Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody:
 
“We don’t trust Russia. We don’t trust Putin. We never will. They’re never going to be our friend. That’s just a fact.”
 
This statement goes far beyond any definition of objectivity or diplomatic protocol and is blatantly racist. And BTW, US common usage allows us to refer to hatred of an ethnic group as “racism” even if the target ethnicity is not strictly speaking a race. To see how prevalent this tendency is, try Googling
 
“anti-mexican racism.”
 
It is one thing to say you don’t trust a foreign government, but Haley apparently slipped and exposed her personal feelings about an entire people, an entire nation. This was not objective fact, it was propaganda aimed at making Americans hate and mistrust the Russian people. However, if it is true that they, the Russians, “will never be our friend,” then that is a function of US policy and not the fault of the Russian people. It means that, in the official view of Nikki Haley as the spokesperson of the White House, no matter if Russia changes and does things to the liking of the US government, US officials will still never allow them to be the friend of America, and judging by the military build-up and NATO drills happening now right at Russia’s doorstep, it is clear that the West is ready to go to war, based in large part on this irrational propaganda – but on the flimsiest of pretexts, based on the Russia hate expressed by Haley, not on anything the Russians have done. After all, the US has imposed economic sanctions on Russia based on Theresa May’s accusation that it was the Russian government that ordered the poisoning of Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia, even though the accusation was first hastily levelled without any investigation, simply because the poison used, of the Novichok class, was first used in Russia. That too was pure crude, ugly Russia hate, Russia bashing, based on emotion and with no pretence of objectivity. The president of the Czech Republic later disclosed that his country also possessed samples of the same poison, discrediting the story that the Russians had to be the culprits, but it didn’t matter to US politicians, who imposed sanctions on Russia on the basis of the UK’s accusations. We must punish Russia for being Russia, and frankly, for telling the truth about the out-of-control West. This use of truth by Russia is the most dangerous propaganda of all. It is like an acid that slowly dissolves the lies and hypocrisy of the Western political class and media.
 
Haley’s shocking racial slur reveals a tyranny that has no place in a “democracy,” because in a democracy, the people decide who their friends are and the government must accept their decision. Haley slipped into an authoritarian rant that revealed her, and her government’s willingness to incite anti-Russian hate among Americans, even insisting that “we” (meaning Americans) are russophobes. Trump, by his naming of an embarrassingly incompetent, inexperienced and racist bumpkin as his UN ambassador, has foolishly tried to please his Russophobic enemies by pretending to go after the Russians with a vengeance even after promising his voters that he would get along with Putin. Consequently, he is now seen as a warmonger and sadly, as a result, no one knows what the real Donald Trump thinks.
 
Now I read the Russian press daily in the Russian language and I have never seen – nor expect to see – any statements by Russian officials or msm representatives saying anything remotely resembling this kind of unprofessionalism, and let’s be frank, stupidity, aimed at Westerners by Russians. Yet there are Americans who pretend that Russian propaganda is the same as Western propaganda. But these people do not read the Russian press and they don’t know what they are talking about.
 
There are several other blatant examples of propaganda that we see every day in the US-influenced Western press and they are all aimed at making Westerners accept as a matter of course the possible war against Bashar al-Assad.
 
US politicians routinely call Assad a “bloody dictator,” blaming him and him alone for the barbarity and murder committed by US-backed terrorists, despite the lack of supporting evidence that Assad has ordered any brutality. Yet at the same time, until the Khashoggi killing, no US politician had been quoted calling MBS a bloody dictator, even though the Yemeni casualty count, mostly civilians, was reported as 16,200 as of October 2018, and to top it off, the evidence in the Khashoggi case points straight to MBS. Thus, we know that the Saudis are brutal dictators, but in US propaganda, only Assad is a brutal dictator while MBS – at least until the Khashoggi bloody torture and killing – was never called brutal or a dictator in the msm.
 
The most convincing piece of evidence indicating that the anti-Assad reports are pure propaganda and are false is the testimony of several Syrians who were involuntarily caught up in the false flag event in Douma that purported to be a gas attack by Assad. These witnesses appeared at the OPCW in Hague and declared that they had been in a perfectly healthy condition when they were approached by members of the US- and UK-funded anti-Assad White Helmets, who doused them with water – simulating the prescribed treatment of poisonous gas inhalation – and persuaded them to rush to the nearby hospital, where they filmed them being doused with more water. The resulting staged propaganda video was then sent to news outlets and served as the “evidence” on which Trump fired over 100 Tomahawks into Syria.
 
The fact that Trump hastily attacked without awaiting the results of an investigation is evidence in itself that the US knew this was a fake gas attack or that it didn’t happen at all.
 
Propaganda gave the US an excuse for war. It always does.